A Christmas Holiday Like No Other

Beautiful sunrise

Christmas Eve morning Capt. Larry arose in time to catch a sunrise over the Drake Passage, while he was having coffee in the observation room.

The waters were still laid down. After the sun was higher in the sky, he noticed a perfect circle of blue sky peeping through a cloud bank. Could this be the hole in the ozone layer?

The ozone hole?

No, but it sure was entertaining to think of it in these terms and a great picture for a practical joke later! Returning to the stateroom, he found Jane up and getting ready to fix her hair. She got out her curling iron which works on 110 volts.

Smokin' hot!

The ship’s power is 220 volts. No problem, because we had an international voltage converter (thanks Brian and Janelle!) that would bridge the gap. However, we had never used one of these things, and, of course, we left the directions at home. After placing the converter in various configurations, Capt. Larry found one that he figured would work. To prove this, he warily plugged the computer power supply in and everything seemed OK.

Singed right off!

Jane plugged in her iron and waited for it to heat up. She started to curl her hair, when Capt. Larry noticed that her hair was smoking.

She yanked the iron from her hair only to find that the hair around the iron had been completely singed off. She was upset, the stench of burnt hair filled the cabin, and Capt. Larry began to worry that the smoke detector might go off. She unplugged the iron and used it after it had cooled down considerably. However, the weird thing was that when she went to use it by plugging it in intermittently the next day, it worked fine and never overheated no matter how long it was powered! Go figure.

After breakfast we attended a lecture on penguins and another on glaciers and ice sheets. Jane liked the birds and Capt. Larry thought the ice lecture was good.

Some ice free land

Consider that only 3% of Antarctica is ice free and the ice thickness makes Antarctica the highest and lowest continent.

Landing on Aitcho Island

That last statement is not a contradiction, because the ice thickness gives Antarctica the highest average elevation of all the continents, and because of the weight of that ice, it depresses the land mass causing most of the continent’s land to fall below sea level.

Gentoo penguins by the water

If the ice covering the continent were to melt, sea levels would rise about 190 feet which is pretty impressive.

Nesting Gentoos

Anyway, because we made such good time crossing the Drake Passage, we were going to stop off in the Shetland Islands at Aitcho Island (from the abbreviation with the same pronunciation H.O. or Hydrologic Office, a British field survey office) to see some penguins.

A Chinstrap penguin approaches

Since this was our first time ashore, we had to attend a briefing about the Zodiac landings and how to conduct ourselves around the wildlife.

Baby Gentoo chicks

This was also going to be a wet landing in which we would have to leave the Zodiac and wade ashore. When we got ashore, it was an eye opener. We had heard about the penguin guano, but the amount of it everywhere and the stench was almost overwhelming. On this island we saw only two species, the Gentoo and Chinstrap penguins.

Nesting Chinstraps

Both species were nesting and they are both colonial. That is, they segregate themselves into large nesting groups of their own kind.

A pebble stealer

The nests are built out of any material they can find, which is mostly stones, because there is practically no plant material like that used by birds in other environments.

A skua swoops in for lunch

It seems to be a full-time occupation to steal stones from other nests to build your own. Both of these species lay two eggs per nest and the chicks were just beginning to hatch. We saw one Gentoo penguin feeding two chicks that had recently hatched.

Some chicks become a meal

We were also able to witness a skua, a large predatory bird, fly away with a chick in its claws that it was able to steal from a Gentoo nest. When the skuas got too close to the nest in an attempt to steal the eggs or chicks, some of the Gentoos would attack them and run them off.

Get outta here!

It was very colorful and hard to imagine what goes on in these places during the wintertime when it is very cold and very dark.

Bath time!

Returning from the water

The temperature was only about 32°, but there was a 10-15 kt. wind blowing, so we were ready to leave when the first boarding was called. Back in the water we found ourselves surrounded by swimming penguins which torpedoed through the water at incredible speeds. Getting back aboard the ship was also interesting.

At the captain's cocktail party

First we had to step into a tray with disinfectant in it. In the ship’s mud room we had to clean our boots with water and a brush, then store them in a tray with our stateroom number, and finally spray the soles with a viricide.

Santa was good to Jane!

By the time all of this was over we felt that we were the only things contaminated.

Capt. Larry's kind of penguin!

Before dinner, we attended the captain’s cocktail party where we mingled with the crew and fellow passengers. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner, a visit from Santa, after dinner drinks with fellow passengers in the piano bar, and celebrated a midnight mass in the theater with crew and passengers. It was an incredible day!

Merry Christmas and greetings from Whaler’s Bay, Deception Island, Antarctica. What a place this is! Deception Island is was formed by the collapse of a volcanic cone after a huge eruption around 10,000 years ago.

Entering Deception Island

The volcano’s caldera filled with water and provides one of the safest harbors in all of Antarctica, as it is surrounded by the remaining volcanic peaks on virtually all sides.

Whaler's Bay

However, this safety at anchorage is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the volcano is still active, last erupting in1967.

An albatross and chick

Scientists monitor the volcano’s likelihood of erupting and issues a color coded warning system for boaters and research station personnel. On this Christmas day the color code was green, or good to anchor.

Lost in the storm?

It started snowing as we entered and the intensity of the storm increased throughout our stay. How many times can one say they had a snowy, white Christmas in the middle of summer?

Follow me, you guys!

Our anchorage was at the old, abandoned British whaling station named Whaler’s Bay. The beach is covered with old barrels, equipment, whalebones, and other debris from the whaling and research period.

Geeeez, that's cold!!

There were also some Gentoo penguin colonies and rookeries. Volcanic activity is evident by steam rising along the shoreline that has a strong sulfurous odor.

What a place!

This geothermal activity provides the backdrop for the famous ‘Polar Plunge’ where about 30 guests in bathing suits jumped into the water from a Zodiac. We chose to opt out. We watched a movie, took a nap, attended some lectures and recaps of the day’s activities, and were treated to a fabulous eight-course Christmas dinner.